Imagine What Real Gays Face

April 21, 1993|The Morning Call

To the Editor:

Beware! First there were "gays in the military," now there are "gays in the comics!"

If the comics are no place for "social issues," why were there no protests when the strip `'Cathy" dealt with the social issue of a wife and a husband deciding which would pursue a career and which would remain home to raise the children? Where were the jaded letters when "Luann" touched upon teens starving themselves to look and feel attractive to achieve the status quo?

But then, these strips most certainly went unprotested because those issues are condoned and approved by the heterosexual majority. Never mind that the creator of the strip in question is a "straight" woman, and forget that the character in question wasn't just sprung upon us, but rather developed over the years as a growing, maturing young adult. It is only because the strip is portraying an openly gay young man battling not only to accept himself but to be accepted, that suddenly there is a problem.

The character of Lawrence just wants to be treated like a human being, and if society is in such an uproar over a homosexual character in a comic strip, perhaps it is time to stop and imagine what it must be like to be a homosexual "character" in life.